


Impossible Things

by samusisagirl



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Gen, don't look at me, for someone who doesn't want kids i sure write about anders having kids a lot, i don't know what this either, it's 2 am, just anders thinkin'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 01:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20024017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samusisagirl/pseuds/samusisagirl
Summary: It was only after Hawke strolled into his life with a scar across her nose and a flash of danger in her smile that he started thinking all these impossible thoughts of love, family, children.





	Impossible Things

Anders had never thought about having children.

Well, he had thought about it, in sort of a tangential way. Whenever he would bring a small life into the world in his dark, dank clinic in Kirkwall, for that moment he held the wrinkled, bright red infant in his arms before passing them on to their waiting mother, he would think _what if…_

But no. It was impossible. He would never be a father. A thousand reasons would never allow such a thing to come to pass. He was tainted from his time as a Warden, for one. He was an apostate mage in hiding. And he had his cause, the Mage Underground. Mage freedom. Justice. Vengeance. 

He was always in danger. He would always be in danger. No matter how hard he tried to fight it, he just couldn’t help but get up to dangerous things with a dangerous woman.

He didn’t want to think about her. He always thought about her. 

He had never thought about falling in love, either. Not until Hawke. 

In the Circle, there was no point in thinking about such things. Love. Family. Children. It was an exercise in futility that would only breed bitterness. They were impossible. So, he forgot those things existed and focused on more obtainable things. 

Even after he was finally free, such things never crossed his mind in any real way. And if he was being honest with himself, he had seen plenty of lovers and delivered plenty of children without thinking _what if._

But that was before. 

Before her.

He supposed his life could be split into two eras: Before Hawke and After Hawke. And if any future historian cared to write about his life, that would be the timeline they would use.

It was only after Hawke strolled into his life with a scar across her nose and a flash of danger in her smile that he started thinking all these impossible thoughts of _love family children._

The moment he met her, he could almost feel the world shifting beneath his feet, slanting to her so that he felt as if he was fighting gravity itself to keep away. 

And if she hadn’t been such a damnable _flirt_. But she was that way with everyone. Varric. Isabella. Fenris. It was easy to convince himself he wasn’t special. Why would he be special? He wasn’t particularly handsome. He could be too intense. Too chaotic. He was inhabited by a Spirit of Justice that had altered him in ways he didn’t fully understand himself, for Maker’s sake. 

So, he tried to keep his distance. Tried to brush off her playful remarks. Tried to warn her away. Tried again and again. And yet.

And yet… 

He fell in love. And Maker, did he love her. Even if he had resolved to never tell her. He had resigned himself to pine forever, to lie awake at night thinking _what if what if what if_ until it drove him mad. Well, madder than he already was. 

Then, one day, she strolled into his clinic like she always did, and said something like she always said and by that time, it had been three years of _trying_ , so he broke down and said: “I’m still a man. You can’t tease me like this and expect me to resist forever.”

He thought he might be dreaming when she stepped forward, and he instinctively took a step back, bumping into the edge of the table behind him and half sat, half lost feeling in his legs and fell onto it. 

And he was sure he must be dreaming when she said: “How long will it take before I drive you mad?” 

_I’m already mad_ , he wanted to say, but it was the way she said it that made him pause. It was the look she gave him that made him terribly hopeful and vastly afraid all at once. It had none of her usually joviality. Her easy air. It should have been a joke, but she wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were very dark when he looked up at her, and he realized then just how very close she was, standing between his legs, looking down at him collapsed on the table, hand reaching out to trail along his jaw. 

He wasn’t sure who kissed who first, but when they parted, he was panting and dizzy and still unable to stand. He was not sure he would ever stand again.

Later that night, he went to her, practically ran to her. Relieved he no longer had to fight the pull of her orbit. And he told her he loved her as he held her in his arms and that first impossible thing did not seem so impossible anymore when she said it back. Then she asked him if he wanted a sandwich. 

The second impossible thing came so naturally he almost didn’t realize it. After their first night together, he moved into her estate. He added his belongings to her room, paltry as they were. A pillow his mother had stitched on her bed. A few shirts and pair of trousers in her wardrobe. A gold earring in her jewelry box. 

Every time after he mentioned her room, she corrected him. _Our_ room. 

_Our home._

Their home was never wanting for company. Almost immediately, Anders found himself constantly surrounded by people he cared for and who care for him. Varric always stopping by for a game of Wicked Grace. Aveline checking in from time to time. Merrill’s laugh echoing the halls. Even Fenris appearing when he least expected him. Isabella seemed to practically live there herself sometimes. And what else was that but family? 

The reality of his new life didn’t quite sink in until a few months after living together, however, while he was at his desk— _his_ desk, purchased specifically for him—writing and rewriting the same line for the thousandth time. It was when Hawke placed a kitten in his lap, a small tabby with a crooked tail she found in Low Town doing something for Aveline. She just smiled and kissed the top of his head as he held it to his chest, feeling the small rumble of its purr against his heart, and he had never felt so full of love. 

So, when Hawke turned to him one night as they sat by the fire and said: “Do you ever think about having children?” He did not think it was impossible. Ill-advised, maybe. Improbable, perhaps. 

But not impossible.


End file.
